Politics

Okay, this isn’t a 14-second post but who knows? Maybe you’ll just skip to the end where we have the whole damn Ronda Rousey / Cat Zingano fight to watch in a GIF. I missed the fight and was worrying about catching a video this morning but I didn’t expect it to be that easy to watch the fight. Joe Rogan’s first post-fight question to Cat was longer than the damn fight.

Anyway, it’s time for the links. It’s only appropriate to start this post with Ronda Rousey.

Until this week, you may not have known that Prince Edward Island was looking into launching online gambling. Then the plan went so wrong that Robyn Doolittle is doing a report on it. (The Globe and Mail)

Bill O’Reilly has gotten off comparatively lightly for lying when compared to others. Maybe that’s because it seems to be a force of habit. (Daily Dot)

Prime Minister Harper said that a Muslim woman should have been forced to remove her niqab when taking the Canadian citizenship oath. Not everyone is happy with that remark. (CBC News)

Like this:

Just when you though that Brian Williams was the only member in the media in the middle of a scandal, I happened across a bunch of stories about news media scandals. Welcome my friends to the show that never ends. And there’s a whole bunch of legitimately interesting stories if that’s more your speed.

Anyway, it’s time for us to do the links. Because the Oscars were this weekend, let’s kickoff with something special. Here’s Amy Adams and Jennifer Aniston.

The right often complains about the war on Christmas or the war on religion but they ignore their war on science. For some reason, science is under attack from people who should know better. (National Geographic)

“Among African-American men aged fifteen to forty-four, 88.7 percent of gun deaths are homicides; among white American men aged thirty-five to sixty-four, 89.2 percent of gun deaths are suicides.: (Harper’s Magazine)

Naturally, Bill O’Reilly went to town on Brian Williams for his lying scandal. Little did he know that he was about to get caught up in a scandal of his own. (Mother Jones)

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I kind of wanted to title today’s linkdump with a bit of a Judge Dredd reference but this title fit best. I’ve finally caught up on my back issues of Judge Dredd. Now it’s to catch up on Justice League and Superman. I don’t even have that big a file at my local comic book shop and I’m always behind. Some people order in like five times the number of comics I do. How can they pull that off?

Anyway, it’s Sunday which means that it’s time for the links. Something like nine months after being named Maxim’s hottest woman of 2014, we finally have Candice Swanepoel’s Hot 100 shoot. It’s too bad that there’s only one photo that’s remotely SFW.

When the chief economist for America’s biggest conservative think tank can’t come up with an actual fact to back up his claims that the Affordable Care Act has been a failure, isn’t it time to give up that fight? Then again, lying to electorate seems to work so why the hell not. (Daily Intelligencer)

A former CSIS officer says that the Harper government’s new anti-terror bill will completely backfire. (National Post)

Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein went from petty criminal to shooter in a short period of time. What happened to him to cause that change? (Time)

I know I’ve mentioned how some weeks are easier to find weeks than others. Sometimes, though, it’s nice to have links about new stories. As much as I’m sure Brian Williams interests most of you, there has to be other things in the world that are worth writing about. I swear the media finds one bit of clickbait to latch onto and it doesn’t let go.

Anyway, it’s time for the links. Since she’s on the cover of the SI Swimsuit Issue, here’s Hannah Davis.

Quiz time: Would you rather spend $1 billion on the Iraq War or on infrastructure? Independent Senator Bernie Sanders is trying to push through an infrastructure bill that would almost equal spending on the Iraq War. (The Hill)

Brian Williams is being whipped from pillar to post after it came out that he lied about being shot down in Iraq. The story’s traction might come more from the public spectacle than the principle of the matter. (Bloomberg)

The spectacle doesn’t change the fact that NBC news is in complete disarray at the moment. (The Daily Beast)

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I bet nobody was expecting to wake up to a set of links about some unlikely to win the White House Republican nomination hopefuls, some exposes on sports media and the implosion of Brian Williams career. Sometimes, you get a really bad week for links. Sometimes, you get this week.

And it’s a good thing that I didn’t do an SI Swimsuit cover odds post this year because I would have been wrong. Hannah Davis was #5 on my list. Who was #1? Emily Ratajkowski.

Why are people anti-vaccine? Vox asked an anti-vax activist why he thinks vaccines are terrible. (Vox)

The news has become the news. NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has admitted to lying about an alleged helicopter attack in Iraq. (The Hill)

It’s not just the Iraq story that’s falling apart from the Williams lie. His whole career is now being gone through with a fine-toothed comb. (TKTK)

Like this:

You know, I haven’t really watched the Super Bowl for the last couple of years. If it’s a good game, I’ll watch it but generally I don’t care. Last year, I stopped caring shortly after the safety to open the scoring. And I haven’t watched any football since my Lions were eliminated. Maybe I’m just getting old but I don’t find sports as interesting as I did even just a few years ago.

Anyway, it’s time for the links. Let’s kick things off with the halftime star from the Super Bowl. It’s Katy Perry.

With Mitt Romney pulling out of the Republican nomination race for the 2016 election, the new early favourite is Jeb Bush (The New Yorker)

For a more broad look at the various contenders, the Post put together a look at their life histories. (Washington Post)

Things at Fox News aren’t always sunshine and lollipops. Bill O’Reilly tends not to be happy when his position as top dog is threatened. (Mediaite)

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I don’t know how but my hometown managed to avoid this seemingly apocalyptic snowstorm that hit most of the Eastern US. I’m not complaining since the snowbanks are way too high as it is but we’ve gotten all the rest of the snow this year so why not this too?

So now it’s time to kick off the links. Let’s heat things up from the start with Sarah Stephens.

What is middle-class per the Conservative government? That would be families who earn over $120,000. (Yahoo News)

Speaking of big money and politics, the Republican National Committee could spend nearly one billion dollars to win the White House in 2016. (Politico)